


clinch

by CosmicTurnabout



Category: Final Fantasy XIV
Genre: Angst, F/M, One-Sided Attraction, Patch 5.3: Reflections in Crystal Spoilers, Pining, Tumblr: FFXIVwrite, Tumblr: FFXIVwrite2020
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-06
Updated: 2020-09-06
Packaged: 2021-03-06 22:15:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,948
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26326249
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CosmicTurnabout/pseuds/CosmicTurnabout
Summary: Emet-Selch fulfills a promise made long ago, knowing he will go uncompensated.
Relationships: Azem/Solus zos Galvus | Emet-Selch
Comments: 3
Kudos: 24
Collections: Emet-Selch's Wholesomely Debauched Bookclub FFXIV-Writes 2020 Collection





	clinch

**Author's Note:**

> For the FFXIV writing challenge prompt #4: “clinch.”

“I am curious about something, Emet-Selch.”  
  
“And what would that be, O wisest one?”  
  
Azem tapped a finger against her chin with the infuriatingly smug air of someone about to grind a nerve under their heel. “For someone they call the Architect... I have never seen you build anything.”  
  
Emet-Selch snorted. Why had she pulled him aside to discuss this? Could not the entrance hall of the Bureau of the Administrator serve just as well as a forum for her nonsense? Away from everyone else... what did she hope to gain by such a move?  
  
“Inquire at the Bureau of the Architect and you will see the many concepts I have already brought into being. Almost all of my ideas have been accepted, an accomplishment only _one_ of us can boast of. I want not for credentials.”   
  
“I am not referring to concepts,” she said. “Well, not the common types.” She had been leaning against a railing overlooking the Polyleritae District, and when she turned, the moon limned her in shimmering gray, sharpening her outline. She was all sharp edges, was Azem. The only softness she had was for the outside world.  
  
That left no softness to spare for him. Never for him.  
  
“Then what do you mean, pray?”  
  
“What I mean is—would you build something for me? Customized specifically to my liking." She shrugged. "An automaton. A clockwork toy. A small edifice. Something of that sort. ‘Architect’ implies—well—buildings. Non-living concepts. I suppose that is what I had in mind.”  
  
He tried to hide a smirk. “What makes you think I would construct a building just for you?”  
  
“Oh, Hades.” She swept his hood back before he could flinch away, running her fingers quickly through the locks of hair that fell across his forehead. He felt a chill—not unpleasant in the slightest—rush liquid down his arms. “You do _so_ enjoy pretending you’re not in love with me.”  
  
“Pretending is not in it, my dear Azem. We are close, but... love?” He coughed, readjusting his cloak and waving a hand with more force than was strictly necessary. And fighting with all he was worth to will away the blush creeping into his cheeks. Of all the days not to wear his mask.  
  
 _Why can I not say it? Why can I not even say her true name now? By the star, it should be the easiest thing I have ever attempted, and yet_...  
  
Her answering smile said she knew all his secrets and then some. Damn the woman!  
  
"Fine, then. Do not admit it. I need not hear it from you. But do think of something to build for me, eh? I expect great things from Emet-Selch the Architect." Somehow she managed to infuse his epithet with cheek and awe both.  
  
Emet-Selch stood silent and still for a moment, looking out over the plaza. Two children were playing near the Capitol, running from some blobby construct with nubs for arms. He stood only a spare few fulms from Azem. Just close enough to reach out and touch. Just. But he left the distance between them empty.  
  
“What is in this for me?” he asked suddenly, cocking an eyebrow.  
  
She raised her arms over her head in a lazy stretch. “Whatever do you mean?”  
  
“I mean, what do I get out of this if I build something for you?”  
  
“Oho.” Her arms swung back down and she tapped her cheek once, twice. She was wearing a half-mask that covered her eyes, and all he could see were the dimples at the edges of her mouth.  
  
“A kiss would be a fitting reward for you, I should think.” Lips the color of plums fell into a straight line, mocking him. Lips that vexed his dreams. “It would turn your frown into a smile for once.”  
  
Emet-Selch froze. Now what did this portend? Did she truly love him after all? Did she not? He was regarded as one of the wisest among his people, and still he had no way of telling north from south with her. If one thing was for certain sure, it was that she delighted in torturing him. Was it only teasing, though? Was it? And why did he care so damn much?  
  
But he knew why. He was simply too stubborn to see it.  
  
 _Or is that you are too frightened_? a voice whispered darkly in his head. _They should have dubbed you Coward, not Architect_.  
  
He ignored the voice and leaned harder against the railing, so tense he could trace the tendons on the back of one of his hands. The children continued to frolic with their concept at the far edge of the plaza, high laughter rising with the wind.  
  
“Right. I should think so as well. I accept.”  
  
He tried to sound somewhat unenthused with her offer, but Azem saw right though his charade. As always. She smiled like the sun rising.  
  
“It is a deal, then.”  
  
**  
  
Emet-Selch had clinched the deal, but it took him an eternity to make good on it.  
  
In the end, he could not think of a project fit for Azem. In the end, as it turned out, he waited too long. The Final Days were upon Amaurot before he knew it, and the promise between them had burned to ash with the rest of the city, leaving only cold, piled doubt behind. Azem was dead or worse, and had been for thousands and thousands of turnings of the star. He knew not if she had been reborn; likely, her shards were walking in the form of the fractured creatures that passed for men these days. Even if she were half-alive in one of those singular fragments, he would need to find the one that was her before he could raise her up to completion. And to find her, he suspected there would need to be another few Rejoinings at least.  
  
But now, strangely, he had time. Mayhap all the time in the world. The situation on the First had afforded him unique opportunities.  
  
Like a stage for his current project, for example. He had spent days upon days creating this city under the sea from pure aether, fashioning spires and windows and doors from energy drawn out of his own vast reserves and the surrounding air. He could not pin down exactly when the desire to do this first took hold of him. Mayhap it was a month ago, when the Warrior of Darkness had slain their first Lightwarden, or maybe it was the very hour he had begun. In any case, he had not been able to stop creating once he wove that first doorway. It seemed a wild energy filled him to the core, spurring him to ever greater heights of inspiration. He had created residents for the city as well, and he took special care there, cloaking them in the typical ancient robes. Marking their heights just so. He was careful not to make any of them too recognizable, though. Individualize them too much and he risked...  
  
His hands froze in the middle of weaving a new figure to join the masses flocking to his recreation of the plaza in the Polyleritae District. Would it really hurt to... Emet-Selch shook his head. _No. I cannot believe I am even considering this. I cannot do it. Not even I can play with creation so recklessly_.  
  
As much as he might have wanted to, Emet-Selch could not bring himself to weave that particular Amaurotine into any semblance of being. Instead he thought of another friend, and weaved form, personality, and robes to fit him. But he could not think too deeply on this friend either, lest he risk the aetherial balance of his creation and lose control of the whole thing altogether. This one vague shade would have to do for his loneliness.  
  
He weaved and shaped for several hours more, until a cold current of air brushed his hair aside. The current did not abate, sweeping through the vast canyon and seeming to settle over it. That signaled day’s end, when he usually took his rest. He shook his hands out of his robes, then stepped well back from the cliff’s edge where he did most of his work. He surveyed with cool eyes. Below lay Amaurot, filling the whole of the dark valley with its terrible beauty.  
  
Terrible—because nothing like it could ever exist again. Not in truth. It was the ghost of the city he had made, nothing solid in the way stone was solid, everything constructed of pure aether. Shadowy buildings ending in curling spires, ethereal lights in the windows, an aura of misty green hanging a hairsbreadth above the ground. Phantom shapes winding their way through the meticulously detailed streets. Looking at it made him feel alive in a way he had not since those halcyon days when he had worn the communal robes himself, been a vaunted scholar and steward of the star. Their home. For a moment, his lifeblood was a river of molten fire pulsing through his veins, illuminating him like the skylights he had seen once at a celebration in Eorzea.  
  
This city was something he could say he had built. It was a masterwork, a dead dream fashioned into stark reality. The Architect’s masterwork... for...  
  
 _Emet-Selch, he of the sour frown. Emet-Selch, beloved of misery_. She had loved to call him names such as those, but did he really frown and sulk about so much? Even back then? It was sad, somewhat, to think that misery had marked him before the world had been broken.  
  
"Is this enough for you, Azem?" he shouted of a sudden, and then froze. His voice echoed back to him from the spires of the city. Yes. Of course. He was doing this for her after all. He had not even suspected his true intentions when he had first undertaken the weaving those many days ago.  
  
Or... mayhap he had known all along. A grand city built to say what he never could after millennia of silence. Well—technically, this was the second thing he had made specially for her, though he was not sure that first counted in the same way that this did.  
  
Yes, he was still the miserable coward he had always been. A sullen, miserable coward.  
  
He tried on a smile then, a smile as true as he could make it, knowing he would never get that kiss. A hand to his cheek, and the thought was gone. Just like Azem. He saw himself in the reflection of a nearby building, the window a bubbled blue, and the image that looked back at him was muted, ghastly. The smile looked wrong on his face. As he had expected. The long drag of years had pulled him further down into sourness and misery than any being could safely go.  
  
Azem, wherever her soul nested, would have to accept the Emet-Selch she found now.  
  
 _If she wants to find you_ , that dark voice from ages ago rasped. _There is no going back. There never was_.  
  
He scoffed, turned on the building with its blue windows, and began walking down the path that emptied into the city proper. He was making for a balcony overlooking the main plaza, a favorite resting place of eld. He had fulfilled a silly bargain with a dead woman simply because he was a man who held true to his promises. Naught else. To admit otherwise would be folly. To admit otherwise would be weakness.  
  
And the Architect, whatever else he was, must be strong even in misery.  
  
Far overhead, through the glassy veil of water, the sun was setting.


End file.
